Inside the Phillies with MLB.com beat writer Todd Zolecki

Werth Wins It

He went 2 for 3 with a double, home run, RBI, walk, stolen base and two runs scored in last night’s 7-4 victory over the Phillies.

“I was kind of waiting for it,” Werth said of the boos. “Once I got it, it was kind of funny.”

Werth had some interesting things to say before and after the game.

Here’s a taste:

“One of the things that (Charlie Manuel) told me throughout the season last year was – you mentioned Jim Thome. When Thome was (a free agent), he wanted to stay there (in Cleveland) and play there and Charlie said, ‘If you give up the big deal and stay here I’ll never speak to you again.’ That was one of his life lessons for me. There was a few of those. I learned a lot about life, love and baseball from Charlie Manuel. There was a lot of good times there.”

“I think that was more going back to when they traded Cliff before the 2010 season,” said Werth, asked about comments he made in the offseason that made it sound like he is upset with the Phillies for choosing Cliff Lee over him. “That was more to do with that. If we would have had Cliff last year it would have made things a lot different. Baseball is a business. I understand all that. I think whatever was interpreted and said, the meaning was, ‘Hey, we could have had Cliff all year.’”

“When we played against Manny Ramirez, Charlie was always yelling at Manny,” said Werth, who was told Manuel plans to give him some crap when he’s in the batter’s box. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Obviously, any time you hit a home run you are going to have some satisfaction. Was it extra special against those guys? Probably a little bit. I was trying to perform well for Charlie. He hasn’t seen me play in a while.”

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13 Comments

No doubt JW stepped it up in his first game against the Phillies. The real question is how many times can he get up like that playing out the season with the Nats when they have nothing to play for. That said, I wish him luck…as far as I’m concerned he did his job here in Philly.

If the fans had just ignored JW he probably wouldn’t have gotten riled up and hit so well. No reason to boo him, or cheer him. As I’ve said before, Jayson who? Let’s just treat him like any other Nat – inconsequential.

How many times ? Every time he takes the outfield, steps up to the plate with a bat. Werth proved as a Phillie that he can perform with the best players in the game. The Phillies indicated they had no money and it’s because they spent it on Lee or at the time intended to spend it on Lee. Phillies have Brown and Francisco, even Polanco. Hopefully the sum of those parts is bigger & more productive than Werth and translate into WS titles. I really think last season, the pitching wasn’t quite there either. The Giants out dueled and out clutch hit them. Werth had a few AB’s that left RISP, were they the one’s that caused the Phillies to lose ? Some of them, but others left RISP too. So far, I have 3 instances of bases loaded, 2 out fails. Howard had 1 vs the Astros, another vs the Mets and a 3rd last night vs the Nats by Victorino. 2 of the 3 games were losses. These accumulate over the season and get enough of them in the same series in the playoffs and it’s elimination and/or don’t win a WS.

Werth knows the boos and the trash talk are all signs of respect. I wish him the best and wasn’t at all surprised that he had a good game last night and I won’t be surprised when he tears it up again tonight and tomorrow.

I don’t think the choice was ever Lee vs. Werth. I don’t think the Phillies had any reasonable expectation of getting Lee until long after they had decided to pass on Werth. I think the choice was Howard vs. Werth. Werth knew what the Howard deal meant. You could see it in his numbers. Personally, I think they made the wrong choice, but time will tell. Over the next few seasons, you can’t go wrong with either player. Three years from now?

The Phillies let Werth go. You can’t blame him for that. I like his game a lot and will always enjoy watching him play, even if I have to boo him to show it.

Your entitled to your own opinion with which I do not agree. Werth had a career season last year which was probably better than Howard’s in some but not all regards. But even if one concedes that Werth had a better season, what does it say when Werth’s best year to date at most nudges out Howard’s worse year to date?

The person who deserved to be booed last night was Charlie Manuel. What was Mayberry doing up there in the 7th inning? Mayberry is a classic mistake hitter and Hernandez was not going to make a mistake in that situation. The play was to use Gload and put pressure on the Nat pathetic defense with one out. It was a game changing decision, and a bad one at that.

phan: He didn’t use Gload at all, promting a couple of beat writers on Twitter to ask if he was injured. Apparently not. Counting on Mayberry getting a ball up in the wind (Charlie’s plan) instead of using a veteran hitter against a crafty pitcher was a big deal. Hunches are nice when they work, but when you stray from “the book” and it backfires, you’re going to be questioned.

pherris, I’ll call Charlie on the carpet when I think he needs it andf I always have. I let him have it in last years NLCS because of some decisions he made. I disagreed with you about Happ and Martinez back then and I still do. I agreed that he should go with the veteran. Martinez was way down the list of reasons why they lost that WS.
Batting Mayberry against Hernandez in that circumstance last night was a bad call by any measure. It has nothing with my ‘defined box’ as you call it, whatever that means. It is common sense. I doubt you could find another baseball person who wouldn’t have sent up Gload.

phan52: Why feign ignorance about what staying in or going out of the box means when your response shows a firms grasp of exactly how I meant it? As far as using Martinez rather than Happ, we will never know.

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